Provider of Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai Technologies said it has acquired Sunnyvale-headquartered Soha Systems in an all cash transaction. Privately funded, Soha is a provider of enterprise secure access delivered as a service.

Akamai did not divulge the amount and said in a statement “that the acquisition is not material to
Akamai’s financials.”

Through its acquisition of Akamai intends to strengthen its Cloud Networking Solutions portfolio, and believes it will complement Akamai’s strategy of securing, protecting and accelerating enterprise applications and services in the cloud. In addition, the Company hopes that Soha’s secure access technology will be instrumental to Akamai’s goal of bringing these new capabilities to market in 2016.

This acquisition is Akamai’s second in the last one week when it bought New York city-based IoT startup Concord Systems for an undisclosed sum. For Akamai this acquisition will complement the company’s data processing capabilities and increase support for customers focused on the Internet of Things — technology that aims to connect devices to the internet.

Founded in 2013, Soha (formerly known as BubblewrApp) in 2015 had raised $9.7 million round of Series A funding led by investors Andreesen-Horowitz, Cervin Ventures, Menlo Ventures and Moment Ventures.
Some of the other acquisitions that Akamai made in the security area include: Bloxx, a provider of secure web gateway (SWG) provider, in 2015; and cyber security provider Prolexic Technologies in 2014.
From time to time Akamai has also found itself at the midst of takeover rumors by either Microsoft or Google to compete with Amazon.

“In many ways, the traditional enterprise model is ‘turning inside out’ with applications, employees and data moving to the cloud, well outside of the enterprise’s traditional zone of control. At the same time, security and IT teams remain responsible for ensuring visibility, security and performance,” explained Robert Blumofe, executive vice president, Platform, and general manager, Enterprise and Carrier Division, Akamai. “By adding Soha’s secure access technology to our Cloud Networking Solutions, we believe we are well positioned to help our customers take full advantage of the key trends, cloud and mobile, driving enterprise computing.”

“Enterprise security is undergoing a phase shift and Soha’s secure access service has been designed to address the unique challenges businesses are facing in this era of hybrid data centers and mobile users,” said Haseeb Budhani, co-founder and CEO, Soha Systems. “We look forward to fully integrating our groundbreaking solution as a high-value component of Akamai’s massively scalable, global platform.”

As for Soha, it plans to leverage features of the available on the Akamai platform as add-ons to the Soha secure access service – and vice versa over time.

“The advent of hybrid cloud environments and mobile device usage has upended the traditional methods of enabling secure access. In fact, changes are occurring faster than even we imagined. … we want to go far, and Akamai is absolutely the best partner for us to go farthest. We look forward to fully integrating our groundbreaking solution as a high-value component of Akamai’s massively scalable, global platform,” Haseeb Budhani wrote in a blog post.

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